Tuesday, November 18, 2008

308 Misguided

The Liberals are not going to win by trying to emulate the Democrats 50 strategy. It is one thing to try to build on a beach head that is anywhere from 30 to 45% of the vote and quite another to build something when you take 5 to 15% of the vote. Furthermore, there are also 3 major parties in Canada and not two. If support for the Conservatives goes down in rural Canada, the NDP gains. The reverse is also true.

Another misconception is that Obama won red states. It is more accurate to say that the changing face of Virginia, for example, has transformed the state from a Red state into a swing state. Obama won because the Republicans were crushed in ever major city outside of the South and youth showed up and voted for him by a margin of 2 to 1.

Liberals need to stop fooling themselves. A Liberal minority runs through suburban Vancouver, the 905, and Quebec. The Liberals, I am looking at you Mr. Ignatieff, will not win by appealing to gun owners in Wild Rose. The Liberals made inroads in Vancouver in 2006 because social issues mattered in that election and the Conservatives lost Quebec in 2008 because they were on the wrong side of Quebec when it came to social policy. The Liberals need to become more socially liberal; they do not need to pander to the pro bazooka crowd.

Naturally more resources are going to be put into a winnable riding than a no-hope in the rural hinterland. But those riding's shouldn't be abandoned, and do need more help and support. We may not see dividends overnight with wins, true. There are many votes to be gained in a lot of outlying ridings though, and with the per vote subsidy, any investment in such ridings would likely more than pay for itself.

The electoral map looked decidedly nicer when there were "red patches" across the North, Northern Sask and Man, and in urban Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Edmonton.

We should focus on all winnable ridings, but there needs to be concentration in "urban" Canada (including smaller cities like Prince Albert Sask, and Kamloops BC) and the North. I think we forget that an "urban" strategy is more than just Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Urban includes all those smaller cities of 5000 to 100000 that would REALLY benefit from Liberal programs and policies.

I think we have to "rock the urban vote". This will have the shared effect of rocking the youth vote too...

"If support for the Conservatives goes down in rural Canada, the NDP gains. The reverse is also true."

with this statement:

"The Liberals, I am looking at you Mr. Ignatieff, will not win by appealing to gun owners in Wild Rose. The Liberals made inroads in Vancouver in 2006 because social issues mattered in that election and the Conservatives lost Quebec in 2008 because they were on the wrong side of Quebec when it came to social policy. The Liberals need to become more socially liberal; they do not need to pander to the pro bazooka crowd."

If a riding can flip from Conservative to NDP, then it is a riding that the Liberals could and in fact should be winning if things are going right.

More importantly, the 308 Ridings Strategy is not as simple as suggesting we should pull every effort to win every riding. We cannot win every riding. No one has ever done so (NB and NL aside) and no one is suggesting we could.

What it is, is a statement of two important principles:

1. Every Canadian everywhere is important to the Liberal Party, not just distinct voter demographics.

2. The Liberal Party has something to offer every single Canadian everywhere in Canada and will govern for all Canadians, not just those who could vote for us.

This approach or attitude is won that, on its own, convinces people that the Liberals are ready to govern Canada, not just its own voter blocks and special interest groups, and therefore will help convince voters to vote Liberal once again.

Plus, every voter who is convinced to vote Liberal or get involved, even in a losing cause, is sending a message and, just as importantly, also sending the party money.

(And BTW, I think people are realizing that, while youth played a big role in Obama's win, they were not decisive: youth voter turnout was up only 1% over the last election compared to the overall votes: i.e. of Obama's 52%, only 1% of that was new youth voting. Liberals (and Democrats) should be very cautious about comparisons with Obama's win: with so much going for him - a sense of history, a strong desire for change in the US, 95%+ of the black vote, 8 years of Bush, a gifted and intelligent candidate, a relatively unified party, a disastrous McCain campaign, Pallin - he only did a little better than Bush in 2004. It was no landslide and not clearly a historic shift of popular vote.)

The conclusion a 308 strategy will not work does not follow from your premises.

No one is suggesting Canada and the US are the same, and considering no one has put out any specifics of a 308 strategy it is a marvel to me how you can even suggest it won't work, unless you're privy not only to a set of specifics, but the set of specifics that will be implemented by the Liberal Party.

Comparing ridings to states is comparing apples and oranges. The Liberals should be talking about a 10 province strategy and not 308 strategy. For example, they should actually target seats in Calgary, well maybe not, but certainly Edmonton. Sooner our latter Albertans will follow the rest of the country and stop voting down strictly region lines. Indeed, there may be signs that they may be starting to do just that. Edmonton Strathcona should have gone NDP given its demographic makeup and for once did. What I have a problem with and this was revealed Ignatieff pretending he was a member of NRA was that the 308 strategy is code for the Liberals should pander to the rural Canada the same way they pander to other groups. The Liberals need to stand for something. They can not be all things to all people. Moreover, pandering to people never works and sets oneself up to ridicule. People can smell a phony. Ignatieff is not Tim Horton’s material.

The Liberals have drawn all the wrong conclusions from the US election. Obama never pretended to be just one of the guys -- someone you just want to go have a beer with. His campaign was all about transcendence. Furthermore, Obama seldom strayed beyond “we” and “us”. Universality was the order of the day. He did not stress affirmative action the way the Liberals stupidly do.